New Parties, what do they mean?

Recently, I have been looking around for a party or group to join. However, quite a few of the one's i have contacted have told me something along the lines of they are a young group, and don't have a branch in my area. I know of at least three, The FIRE Collective, Kasama, and American Party of Labour, that have given me this response. A lot of these groups have adopted the mantle of a reassessment of the communism movement, somewhat akin to Avakian's "new systhesis" (while not mimicing it directly). Do you feel like there are more communist parties poping up now than say in the past 20 years or so? And do you feel that these parties, as well as existing ones, exploring the idea of a break from classical communism is indicitive of the entire movement moving in a new direction to achieve the ultimate goal of revolution?

I feel like the "break with the communist movement" thing is more a 'PR' necessity than anything else. Anyone who's been paying any attention knows that the communist movement up to this point has been a resounding failure, so any group who didn't present themselves as new and unique would probably get eaten alive. (Of course, the exception is the few groups who blame communists' failures on an alleged "break with communism" and portray themselves as the "true" heirs of Lenin.) But in the grand scheme of things, all these groups tend to peddle the same tired old formulas. So far I don't see any evidence that communists are challenging the traditional revolutionary paradigm.

I feel like they sort of necessarily have to think critically about communism and a new communist movement. Especially American ones. Communism have never been put into practice in America, or any first or second world country before. Therefore, the idea of thinking critically about communism, and keeping a dialectical approach to the practice of communism in America will be indicative of any group that wants to succeed.

Communism have never been put into practice in America, or any first or second world country before.

ahem. Two words. Iroquois Confederacy.

I feel like the "break with the communist movement" thing is more a 'PR' necessity than anything else. Anyone who's been paying any attention knows that the communist movement up to this point has been a resounding failure, so any group who didn't present themselves as new and unique would probably get eaten alive. (Of course, the exception is the few groups who blame communists' failures on an alleged "break with communism" and portray themselves as the "true" heirs of Lenin.) But in the grand scheme of things, all these groups tend to peddle the same tired old formulas. So far I don't see any evidence that communists are challenging the traditional revolutionary paradigm.

I wholehearted disagree comrade. It is not Communism that has failed, but rather Stalinism.

Communism= a classless, stateless society in which the means of production and distribution are owned in common.

Such a society has never existed, unless you are speaking of primitive communism, in which tribal societies existed without classes and shared all resources in common.

Socialism, the period of transition from capitalism to communism where the assets of the capitalists and landlord are expropriated and used for the common good of society has been attempted, and for at least a short time, socialism with workers democracy did exist (immediately after the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional government and declared all power to the Soviets, which are workers/peasants/soldiers councils).

Of course, every imperialist nation on earth intervened and a bloody civil war ensued. When Lenin tragically passed away during this time Stalin made a grab for power. His country was so backward and weak he feared that workers democracy would impede the war effort and lead to the restoration of capitalism in Russia. So Stalin did the unthinkable. He used political maneuvering to destroy workers democracy (particularly in the Petrograd Soviet) and consolidated power. After the civil war, he retained power, built up a privileged caste of bureaucrats and attempted to bring about "socialism from above" and "socialism in one country"

He betrayed the very essence of Communism (read Trotsky's "Revolution Betrayed").

Due to Russia's backward state of affairs it needed to spread the revolution to the advanced capitalist countries and had the opportunity to do so in Spain, Italy, and Germany. However, seeing that the emergence of true workers control would undermine his regime he sabotaged these revolutions and spread his deformed system far and wide using his newly acquired military might.

Communism is an ideal. An ideal that is realistically obtainable, and would lead to the emancipation of the vast majority of the worlds population. We should learn from the mistakes of history, but never lose our hope our our convictions, regardless of past failures.

I for one see a new, unblemished banner of Communism that is worth fighting for.

Let us not forget all those who gave their lives for this most beautiful of ideas. Let us succeed where they have failed so that all who fell on the fields of battle and under the heel of oppression did not die in vain.

LONG LIVE THE WORLDWIDE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!

I wholehearted disagree comrade. It is not Communism that has failed, but rather Stalinism.

Communism= a classless, stateless society in which the means of production and distribution are owned in common.

LONG LIVE THE WORLDWIDE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION!

And this is why we will never have a American communist Revolution in the state, because of people like this one. Let's look at some of the fact.

First if Trotsky came to power, instead of Stalin, then he would of went wwith the NEP. You know there is a country that is trying this, it is called China. How many of you support are "Red" comrades in China?

Second Karl Marx was a man and not a god, and he is allowed to make mistakes. One of the mistake is the ideal that some how we can wipe out a whole group of people, to the point that we no longer need a state, to help us. This is even after he point out that the Capitalists were not able to do this to the monarchist before them.

Final it seems that there is no stop to the number of "magic class" taht ever on clames happend under Stalin. The capitalsits say that he was making a "new" class of the party, and the Trotsky say that he was making a new "state" class. This is why I'm not shocked when I here that we have some "middle" class even thought no one canm tell me who is in it, only that we need to support it.

I don't know "Victory Of The People" would you also like to tell us that Hitler was on the Left why you are at it. you have used main of the same attack point as those on the right.

@Comrade_Stalin:

If you read Marx, especially his Critique of the Gotha Program, you will see it is clear that Marx insists on the need for a "dictatorship of the proletariat", ie, for the proletariat to take control of the State (or to form their own). Marx is very clear on this point, and it is at some indeterminate point in the future that Marx believes that the state will whither away.

But let us focus on the main dilemma: the insistence by Stalinists that the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin represented anything other than a Thermidorean reaction of the first order. It was not the workers in the Soviet Union, but the cadres, the bureacrats and managers which held all the power. Workers cannot be said to have any control over the means of production if in fact all decision making bodies governing these means are kept in the hands of party hacks and bureaucrats.

Finally, I doubt very much the "Victory of the People" would claim that Hitler was on the Left: you apparently are unaware of Trotsky's long ideological struggle against those in Germany that abetted Hitler's rise, including Stalin's failure to build an effctive United Front against the Fascists/Nazis (his idea of a United Front meant an allaince with Britain and France so that, when these countries rebuffed him, he pursued the disastrous Mutual Non-Aggression Pact!).

@btpound: There are several good organizations. Two that spring to mind are the Party of Socialism and Liberation (particularly in California) and the International Socialist Organization (which is active, as is the PSL, in a number of struggles, and is not just a group of "comrades" who sit in a room debating theory.). Whatever you choose to join, good luck!

ahem. Two words. Iroquois Confederacy.

I think the Native Americans in general were communist.

There is evidence that Native American societies reached an economic crisis about 2000 years ago, and instead of choosing the war and imperialist path of the Europe, they reached a lasting peace agreement to share the resources in a sustainable way. In this sense, they were just as economically "developed" as Europe, they just lacked the weapons of war Europe had (they didn't need them).

As egalitarian as these societies were compared to ours, there were still some stratification and division between mental and manual labor of men and women. But women had more equality and power in Iroquois society than in our present society. If we replaced the office of the president with a women's congress in which all women got to vote, we would start to be comparable. We still wouldn't have the kind of mobility or rights to the home that women had in so-called "tribal" societies.

Recently, I have been looking around for a party or group to join. However, quite a few of the one's i have contacted have told me something along the lines of they are a young group, and don't have a branch in my area. I know of at least three, The FIRE Collective, Kasama, and American Party of Labour, that have given me this response. A lot of these groups have adopted the mantle of a reassessment of the communism movement, somewhat akin to Avakian's "new systhesis" (while not mimicing it directly). Do you feel like there are more communist parties poping up now than say in the past 20 years or so? And do you feel that these parties, as well as existing ones, exploring the idea of a break from classical communism is indicitive of the entire movement moving in a new direction to achieve the ultimate goal of revolution?

There certainly have been a lot of communist parties since the 1960's popping up every couple of years. And I agree with what someone said earlier that this attempt to seem new and edgy is a PR stunt to try to win people over and make them forget about McCarthyist views towards communism. Unfortunately, some of them in the process kind of abandon Marxist theory and try to push their "new" theories as something cutting-edge, when they aren't. This also causes them to sometimes fall into idealism.

I have recently been interested in Rocky Anderson's Justice Party. It isn't Socialist, but it is more left-wing. I am not made up in my mind of whether it is a great party and whether I will support Rocky in 2012, but I have been interested in his party and it's ideas. Very pro-labor, anti-corporate, anti-imperialist, etc.